Past, Present, and Future
by Aurora Firestorm
Summary: Time Machine 2002 The explosion of Alexander's time machine leaves strange repercussions in the world of the Eloi and Morlocks, twisting time itself and bringing distant eras, explosive conflicts, and longtime enemies together.


"A temporal mistake? I can't think of another reason, but that seems...impossible. Though just by seeing you now, and seeing this land as suddenly changed as it is, I see it can't be."

"So it seems."

The time traveler furrowed his brows. "That's the only possibility. But what if this mistake has further repercussions?"

"What if, Alexander?" The deep voice spoke slowly, leisurely. "What if, does not matter at this moment."

The traveler's words were quick whispers. "Yes. Yes it does." He threw a glance over his shoulder. The arch was curtained, the ladder pulled up, the bridge gate closed, but still the possibility remained. "What if someone sees you here?"

"I do not intend to stay here even tonight."

"I didn't expect you to. What I also don't expect is an Eloi child, wandering the village, happening upon an old hut and seeing you. But that doesn't mean it's impossible."

"I have little to fear from an Eloi child." The leader's pale eyes, barely tinted blue, settled on Alexander's face. "I shall remain hidden at any cost."

"Yes, I know. Which is what I'm rather worried about." Alexander stood, backing toward the door. "Just...stay here. I'll talk with--"

"No one."

"Mara can--"

"No one."

He took a deep breath, opened his mouth to speak, but let the air out in a soft _huff_ as the Morlock leader narrowed his eyes.

"All right." He held out his hands in resignation. "No one." The time traveler nodded, stifled an exasperated sigh, and stepped beyond the curtain that led to the bridge gate. He climbed over the gate, wincing as the bamboo-like poles shifted under his weight, and gave the Morlock's temporary home a final glance before returning to the _Ayerin_ -- the central platform-bridge of the village.

A stream of soft cloth and dark skin flowed back and forth across the Ayerin, and Alexander paused to watch. The simple lives of the Eloi had never ceased to amaze him. New Yorkers, as he had called the humans of his former day and age, were so complicated, so filled with unnecessary worries and fears and problems. Without their overlords to keep them herded like sheep, their thoughts bound by their own fear and the Morlocks' control, this colony of Eloi flourished in their simplicity.

"Alexander!"

He turned to see a dark, curly-haired child running toward him. "Kalen, where did you come from?" He smiled and knelt to hug the boy.

"From our home. Mara said you would teach me how to make a sun watch!" He beamed, eyes wide and hopeful.

"A what?" Alexander tried to make sense of the words. A device that let one watch the sun? Of course, telescopes could see the sun in great detail, but he had no solar viewing covers, or even a mirror, for a telescope should he even try to make one.

"A..." Kalen paused to furrow his brows and think. "Mara said it's like your pocketwatch. It tells you what time it is. Except you put it in the sun."

"Oh, a sundial!" The time traveler smiled, nodding his head in understanding. Amazing, that the Eloi were so far in the future and yet had lost such technology as a timepiece. Perhaps this was what Christopher Columbus felt like after discovering the New World and seeing its primitive inhabitants -- like a messenger, sent to enlighten the new nation. "Sure. I'll teach you how to make a sundial."

"Sundial." The Eloi boy tested the word. "Sundial."

"Yes." Alexander took him by the hand and led him back to the hut.

There, Mara ground herbs in a bowl, but looked up from her work to greet Alexander with a smile. He returned the expression and sat down beside her, reaching for a flat clay plate.

"Watch." He reached for a triangle of bamboo and scraped at it with a knife until it was flat and even enough to use. "See, when the sun shines on this piece, it makes a shadow." He held it up to the light.

Kalen's eyes grew wide. "Yes, it makes a shadow, but how does it tell the time? Does it move and...tick, like your pocketwatch did?"

"Oh, no, it doesn't tick. When we're finished, the piece will sit here, as so," he held it in the center of the plate, "and when we align it with the sun, the shadow will move as the sun rises and sets."

The eyes, if they could, opened even further. "And the shadow tells you what time it is!"

"Exactly." Kalen learned fast, Alexander noted. Perhaps if the Eloi were willing to use a sundial, he could help them move from a system based on sunrise and sunset to a system based on the passage of smaller time units. Hours, first. An hourglass, or candles precisely made, would do for that. Then minutes and seconds, if he could find the tools to make a pendulum clock. Oh, what he could teach future humanity!

And yet...look at what technology did to humanity. Had they never progressed as far as they did, so far that they shattered the moon and sent it crashing to Earth due to a mere accident, the Eloi and Morlocks would never have existed. But, perhaps humanity would never be happy until it tested its limits, and when those limits were exceeded, it caused its own demise. Perhaps this dual world of "the day and the night" was inevitable.

"Alexander? Are you well?"

"Oh. Yes. I'm sorry; I was thinking." He looked down at the boy. Simple Kalen, so happy, free of fear now that the Morlocks were cleared from this area of the world. Contrasting with the carefree boy was the child of humanity's advancement, and also of its decline, perhaps ten years older than Alexander but a thousand years older than the world around him. For a moment, he wished for the Morlock leader's telepathy, just a moment to open the cold mind and see what lay inside.

Vox's words came back to him, shadows from a dismal night. _And if the truth is so terrible and will haunt your dreams for all time?_

Kalen pulled on his shirt. "Where did you go yesterday? I didn't see you at the windmills."

The time traveler turned his attention back to the boy and motioned to the east. "I went to see Vox, and then to look for some metal to use for a machine." After prowling the Morlocks' vicious gatekeeper device, he had managed to scrounge huge chunks of twisted iron but nothing he could make into nails or screws or even wires without a blacksmith's forge. If only he were sure that the time machine's explosion hadn't damaged the tunnels beyond repair, he would venture into them and search the forges down below.

"You're going to build us machines?"

"I'll try to teach you." He smiled. "Vox will, too. He knows more than I do."

"No one knows more about machines than you do."

The Morlocks had known quite a lot about them. Alexander jotted down a note in his mind to ask the leader what sort of forges may still be intact near the tunnels, if there were any in the first place.

"Vox knows everything humanity learned, up to the year 2037, and then what you Eloi have told him." Alexander set about carving nicks into the clay plate. "I remember seeing him before the moon crashed. The year I saw him, I don't recall."

"Wow. You mean he's been alive that long?"

"Oh, Vox is a photonic. A machine with the mind of a human."

"Wow." Kalen paused, mouth open, staring toward the place where Vox remained now, probably teaching a group of Eloi children how to read the Stone Language, or showing adults the use of a sail, or else telling stories to an eager, amazed throng. "Can you make me a little brother like that?"

Mara, turning away from her herbs, laughed. "Kalen. Alexander doesn't have what he needs to make a machine like Vox."

"And I don't know how, either." He ruffled the boy's hair. "And besides, you have your sister." He motioned to Mara.

"She's no fun."

He used one of his nails to dig the start of a hole into the center of the plate. For a minute or so, he focused on the clay, but then dusted powder off its surface and looked up. "Mara, what's the easiest way out of the west end of the village?"

"The boats to the windmills are the only way. The cliffs are too dangerous to climb, even with our ropes." She poured her herb paste into a bowl half filled with water.

"But the boats are pulled up at night."

She gave him a concerned look. "Why would you want to leave at night?"

"Just, say I wanted to look at the stars. There is so much light in the village."

"You can see the stars from the north bridges."

"Or...maybe I wanted to scout around when it wasn't so hot."

Mara met his gaze for a few seconds, her lips pursed. "Alexander, you sound like you aren't saying all you know."

He couldn't lie to her...but the Morlock leader had sworn him to secrecy. Then again, in a village filled with Eloi now able to fight their enemies, empowered, he wouldn't stand a chance if he started a conflict. Or, with his telekinetic power, would he? Alexander's mind sketched an image of Eloi flying off the bridges, falling to their deaths in the river below. If he told Mara, the Morlock would know, just by reading his mind.

"I can't say. I'm sorry." Alexander put down his sundial and took Mara's hand in his. "Just...please, trust me. I need to leave tonight. Tell me where they keep the boats."

"You're leaving?" Kalen drew his attention, clutching the sundial and Alexander's carving tool and staring up at the time traveler.

"Just for a little while. I want to go to the western forest for a while, but I'll be back."

Mara, still looking worried, turned back to her herbs. "Will you tell me once you return?"

He drew a breath and held it for a moment before replying. "Yes."

Alexander pushed aside the curtain to see the Morlock examining a scrap of fabric. "What's that?"

The pale arm extended, holding out the fabric, and Alexander took it. An Eloi doll, stuffed with a soft material and wearing an embroidered smile, looked back at him through dark clay eyes. "It reminds me of my mother's old doll collection. Hers were porcelain, though. White like snow. Or your kind, for that matter."

Creases formed in the leader's forehead, where his brows should have come together if he had brows in the first place. "Your people are not white. So why would you have white representations of yourselves?"

Alexander shrugged. "I'm not sure. I never thought much of it. We call ourselves 'white,' just because we're the lightest-skinned race in the age I come from. And I suppose the white dolls were just an exaggeration." He smiled, trying to lighten the mood -- and his worries -- at least a little. But what would happen when the Morlock leader returned to his people and brought back more of his hunters? "I never thought humans would become truly white, ever, but perhaps I was wrong."

"Perhaps." The Morlock stood, adjusting the knife at his waist to hide it beneath a flap of leather. "You agreed to find a way out of this village by night."

"Yes. That's why I'm here." He motioned to the setting sun, barely visible through a hole in the hut wall. "There's a boat down by the end. It leads to the windmills, and then the jungle." For a moment, he paused, staring at the scrap of light streaming through the hole. "But perhaps you'll just end up back here."

"Why would I?"

"As soon as day comes, you'll be stumbling through the forest again, and you'll either die from heat exhaustion or end up back at this village. You can't go back down into the tunnels; who knows what effects my time machine had on the earth there."

"Why concern yourself with me, Alexander? If I die, perhaps it was in my temporal destiny to die. Like your Emma."

Alexander's gaze lowered to the floor. Yes. Like Emma. One who was meant to die always did. How he wished he could at least tell Emma he was well, happy and accepted in this new time. And yes, why concern himself with the leader of evil? He killed the Morlock once, but time had seen fit to twist beyond repair once Alexander's machine exploded, thus throwing the leader from death's hand before his unsightly demise, and wreaking who knew what other havoc upon the Earth. But if time had spared the man -- if the specter of a creature could even be called a man -- then he saw some reason why he should.

"Well. Because you're not supposed to be alive, and you are. That has to mean something. I've never been a philosopher, but..." His voice trailed off as he watched the light fade. "We must wait a few minutes for the Eloi to return to their huts."

To his surprise, the Morlock reached out and took the doll again. "Strange, how these Eloi content themselves with creating little trinkets like these."

"Children like them." He peered at the creature's face, trying to imagine a young incarnation. "Surely Morlocks are children at some point as well."

"Of course. Though we do not spend our years in idle play with toys such as this." He turned the doll over twice, with Alexander watching. "Our children work as adults, as soon as we are able."

"Even those of the leader caste?"

"Yes." He held out his hand, and the doll lifted into the air and glided to the shelf from which it had come. "We learn to manipulate objects with the mind, and learn the ways of the past --"

"History."

The pale head nodded. "History. And also, how to make sense of the minds of other beings, and observe them, and change them at will. The work of my caste is to learn, and to apply the mind."

_The poor children, Alexander thought. Never a chance to play. His mind drifted back to his own childhood days in New York, playing in the snow of Central Park with his mother close at hand. He had once built a snow fort, and drenched the walls with buckets of water to turn them to ice, and threw snowballs at young friends from its safe reaches._

"But...now that I've agreed to help you, will you do something for me in return?"

The white face turned to him with a soft, guttural _hmph_. "Something for you?"

"Yes." Alexander sat, his expression serious, his gaze locked onto the pale eyes. "You must promise me, with whatever honor, whatever pride, whatever anything that the Morlocks may have, that you will not bring your people back here."

The eyes narrowed, but neither blinked nor moved. "You can't be the great hero, Alexander."

"Maybe not, but I can ensure that these Eloi are free. I didn't save Mara to have her die." He thought back to Emma, her peach-colored face turning ashen, blood staining the snow. All because of a ring. Just a ring. He wouldn't let Mara slip away so easily as he let Emma.

"All beings die, Alexander." Despite the words, the slow baritone remained cold and blunt. "Yet you refuse, with all your mind, to accept that."

"I love her." He stood, his hand clutching the back of a wicker-like chair. "I love these Eloi. They are my family now, here in this time. Death in itself is inevitable. Death by your hand isn't."

The Morlock shifted his eyes to one side, unblinking; had he been a man from Alexander's era, the time traveler would have expected an apathetic shrug. "And what of my failure, Alexander? The others of my caste will never approve if I do not regroup and return." He sounded not the least bit concerned, though his eyes widened in a semblance of...worry? Fear? Something negative, Alexander could see. "You brought me out of the sun. Now you send me into exile. That seems most...unlike you."

True, the overlords of the other Eloi colonies would probably scorn his mistakes, but a reputation was not worth the death of the village. "It doesn't, does it?" Alexander sighed but kept his words firm. "Nevertheless, you do have your life. In my era, this would mean you owe me your life. I --"

He interrupted with a rough chuckle. "You wouldn't try to kill me again. I can see that even now."

Telepathic. Alexander had forgotten. No, he didn't want to let any life die at his hands, not when it wasn't an immediate threat. This creature had no followers and was therefore no danger. For now, at least.

"No. I won't. But I will turn you over to the Eloi. In the era I came from, criminals are given trials against those they hurt. You should face them, not me."

The ice-blue eyes flared in shock and anger.

"Do you agree that you won't harm Mara or any of the Eloi colony? Or me?"

Now, the Morlock's eyes narrowed, his thin lips pursing. For what seemed like all of ten minutes, he remained as such, staring at the hut wall. Alexander glanced at the curtained doorway every few seconds, knowing that each moment passing meant the possibility of an Eloi appearing in that gap.

"Very well, Alexander." He turned away for once, staring at the floor in what passed for defeat.

Alexander peered past the hut's curtain, watching the Eloi huts beyond. Their lights were on, but one by one they were dimming and then vanishing. "I believe it is safe. Follow me."

He pushed back the long curtain, the paused beside it. Pulling it, he tore the threads that sewed its upper end around the pole that held it. When the cloth tumbled down, he held it out. "Here. White is too visible, even at night, and the moon belt is bright tonight."

The Morlock took it and draped it over his head and around his shoulders, holding it closed. His ghostly eyes peeked out from beneath the makeshift hood, and Alexander managed to keep back a nervous laugh. He climbed over the bridge gate, then stood beside it and waited for the leader to hoist himself over the bamboo bars.

Alexander crept along the bridge, trying not to sneak like a thief but to keep his head low nonetheless. The Elois' clamshell-shaped huts were dark, but every few minutes he thought he saw a pair of dark, curious eyes watching him from another bridge, or from around a curtain, or from a rope ladder. What would the village think, if anyone saw him with this creature he led? Would they banish him forever? Throw him into the river? Call him a Morlock ally and kill him? After all he had done...

But the eyes were never there when he looked for them, so Alexander tried to calm his mind as he walked. At the west end of the village, he found a reed boat sitting on the rope ladder platform. A rope attached the nose of the boat to a bamboo rail on the side of the bridge, and Alexander used it to lower the boat into the water below.

Once the boat rested on the river, rocking back and forth, the time traveler glanced back at the white face behind him. Hopefully these rope ladders were built for more weight than a common Eloi; between his leather clothes, the iron that adorned them, and his own size, the Morlock seemed heavy enough to break some of the thinner ropes he had seen the Eloi weave.

Alexander unfurled and descended the long ladder and stepped into the boat. He motioned for the Morlock to follow and kept watch for any Eloi as the creature climbed down the ladder and lowered himself into the boat, which rocked and dipped but then balanced itself. Alexander lifted an oar from beneath his seat.

"Paddle on the left. Let's turn the boat around, so I'll steer from the back."

The Morlock dug his paddle into the water, splashing a bit at first and making Alexander wince and check the Eloi huts for any watchful eyes. None. He paddled as well, edging the boat away from the cliff wall and turning it so that he rowed in the rear.

"Okay. Stay on the left." He shifted his oar to the right side of the boat and paddled, trying to match the Morlock's sweeping rhythm. Soon, the canoe glided forward through the water, rocking back and forth as the wind stirred soft waves on the river's surface.

The water trembled, as if shaken by some huge hand. Alexander paused, forgetting to remove his oar, and his passenger's paddling arced the boat left.

"What are you doing?" The creature kept his voice low.

Alexander furrowed his brows. "What was that? An earthquake?"

"A what?"

The river shook again, and Alexander rowed once more. He turned the boat so that it pointed west again, out of the village. If the shaking was an earthquake, he didn't want to sit between two cliffs while it happened. He motioned once for the Morlock to put his paddle on the opposite side of the canoe, but said nothing. His eyes flashed back and forth across the walls, searching for cracks or motion in the rock.

With a mighty heave, a wave overtook the canoe and flipped it. Alexander thrashed underwater, clawing his way to the surface. When his hands reached into open air, he clutched the boat.

Toward the end of the capsized boat, a white hand snatched at the water, splashing and tearing at the waves. The time traveler took a deep breath, kicked off his shoes, and ducked under the water. The river blurred his vision, but he saw a flailing shadow sinking despite all efforts to swim. Reaching for the pale blur, he grasped iron and leather and kicked for the surface, trying to pull the weight up with him.

No luck. He kicked around behind the falling Morlock and yanked the straps loose from the creature's heavy vest. Tugging the leather bands off the pale arms, he let them fall to the riverbed and then tried to swim once again. The Morlock ripped off his belt and kicked, adding force to Alexander's pull. Finally, the time traveler felt his hand touch the reed boat and snatched hold of the canoe. Pulling as hard as he could, he dragged the pale head above water.

The Morlock clutched the reeds and gasped for breath, eyes closed, leaning on the capsized boat.

Alexander threw a glance over his shoulder and spotted several Eloi faces. "Get under the boat." His words were barely a whisper.

"What?"

"Get under the boat!" He dragged the Morlock under the canoe, where they both held onto the edges and dangled perhaps hundreds of feet above the riverbed. Occasionally, Alexander rocked the canoe enough to allow more air under one side.

"The Eloi saw us. They'll be coming down to help us soon." He paused to take several breaths. "There's no way out of it. If we flip the boat over and climb back in, they'll see us anyway. We may as well talk to them, instead of trying to out-paddle them. And with the new blowguns they've been making..." Some of the new watchman Eloi were armed with primitive versions of the Morlock dart guns, and they would not hesitate to shoot anything paler than a "New Yorker."

The Morlock leader muttered something under his breath and readjusted his hold on the canoe's edges. His hair floated this way and that, swirling around his face in wet tangles.

"What?"

He turned his head to cough, then drew a deep breath. "_Eloi_. Primitive animals."

"Now's not the time to be judgmental." Alexander leaned the boat enough to peer out from beneath it. "Here they come. Let me explain all this. Don't hurt any of them, unless you want them to drown you." He swam under and out of the boat.

The Eloi leader, awake and accompanied by two frantic men, peered at the boat. He leaned forward from the boat platform anchored just above the river's surface and blinked in the dim moonlight. Finally, he seemed to recognize the time traveler.

"Alexander?"

Alexander waved a hand. "Yes! Could you send a boat to come get me, and this boat here?"

The Eloi shouted something to the crowd, and soon the pack of observers lowered a second canoe into the river. The Eloi leader climbed into it, along with one of men next to him, and both rowed out to Alexander.

The leader held out his hand, and Alexander took it, clambering into the canoe and all but tipping it over. When the boat stabilized, he sat between the two rough seats and crossed his legs.

"There is...another man under the boat. He can't swim, so he's holding onto the sides. Could you help him?"

The Eloi behind him leaned toward the boat, ready to raise its edge.

"Wait." Alexander tapped the chief, and he turned. "First...you can't do anything to him until I have a chance to explain."

The second man translated for his leader, and the first Eloi furrowed his brows but nodded his bald head. He held the boat steady, helping balance his subject's leaning and keep the canoe even. Alexander held his breath.

When the capsized canoe flipped onto its side, the chief's eyes widened. His subject blanched, frozen in fear. Clinging to the boat, claw-nails dug into the reeds, the Morlock overlord glared up at his captors.

"Morlock." The Eloi leader turned to Alexander.

"I know. But please, help him into the boat."

"_You_ help him, if you want him here with us."

"All right..." Alexander leaned over the side of the canoe and took hold of the pale torso, wrapping his arms around the Morlock's chest. "Kick. It'll help."

After a minute or so of struggle, the time traveler hauled the soaked creature over the side of the boat. With his flowing hair now knotted into stringy, dripping clumps and flopped over his face and shoulders, the Morlock looked for all the world like a drowned white rat. An _indignant_ drowned white rat, but nevertheless a pathetic sight, seeming strangely bare in only the plain layers of his leather pants. He refused even to meet Alexander's eyes, keeping his head down but his cold gaze raised to the Eloi throng that continued to grow and stretch from the boat platform to the bridges above.

The time traveler watched him for half the trip to the dock, but then stared up at the Eloi chief. "Let me explain this to you, before you tell them. There is--"

"There must be a reason." Instead of understanding, the man's voice was curt and harsh.

"There is. Just give me a chance to say it before anyone tries to throw either of us back into the river." He rose to a kneel when the canoe bumped against the dock.


End file.
